I never cease to be challenged by the divisiveness of Jesus. On one hand, so much language and imagery about how he’s my friend, our friend, like the old hymn -- “What a friend we have in Jesus.” I’ve sung this together with the family of faith in their last days, as well as that great Gospel song, “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me…” It’s wonderful to have a God who is a friend, someone waiting for and walking with us even now. Someone who takes us by the hand. But if we who are not yet on our deathbeds, who have (God-willing) plenty of time and health left to share some things on this earth…if we who are actively living, have only a picture of this gentle, sweet Jesus, then we’ve traded our Bibles for just a few of our favorite songs and images!
There was a book few years ago by Kendra Creasy Dean entitled “Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church”. She argues, that our young people, studies are showing, are emerging and drifting away from our churches, with not much more than an image of a God who is simply “nice.” The fancy term is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. Let’s just call it “Nice God Up in the Sky” religion. This “Nice God Up In the Sky” religion, as she describes, has made its nest in the hair of Christianity, and is in fact sucking the life out of the church of Jesus Christ, living off of the complicated cross-and-resurrection core of our faith, like a parasite. If the “Nice God Up in the Sky” religion had a creed, these would be the 5 pillars, acc. to Dean and her colleagues. See if this sounds familiar: “1) Sure God exists, whatever, and God watches over us from way above, 2) God wants us to be good and nice and fair like the Bible says. 3) We should also all be happy, and feel good about ourselves. 4) God’s not really involved in our lives, except when we need God to solve a problem. And 5) if we’re good, when we die, we’ll go to heaven.” Maybe these ideas don’t sound too off base, but know that Christian theologians, and martyrs, and scholars and saints down through the centuries — would call this creed profane and lazy. “Nice God Up in the Sky” religion is not scaring our young people away, running for their lives, terrified of the church — there’s really nothing scary about it — it’s just not interesting, it’s not captivating or challenging, it’s not life-giving — it’s boring. It’s slowly but surely “life-draining”...like a parasite.
I’m afraid, in many ways we could be responsible for teaching this to our kids (I certainly could be guilty as charged) — maybe because “a nice God” teaching is a reaction to the “mean, wrathful God” teaching (like Zeus with a lightning bolt) that some of us grew up with…
But this easy, nice, sweet, friend Jesus preaching-and-teaching is slowly-but-surely eroding the church, rounding out the edges, watering it down, making it harder and harder for us to even hear Jesus’ challenge today. (I imagine preachers this Sunday — I know some — who are either irritated that this text was coming up again or make jokes about how this is a good week to go on vacation or preach on something different. I myself joked with Marie, “Good thing so many are traveling right now. Who wants to hear this text about Jesus bringing a sword?!”)
But, but friends, Jesus speaks anyway, thank God!
“What did you expect?” Jesus asks us today, in less-than-sweet tones. “Did you expect me to come and affirm your status quo? Did you expect me bring you just gentle words of encouragement? Did you expect me to take a look at how you’re treating one another and this earth, how you hoard your money, and your gifts, how you exclude one another and trample one another, how you fail to forgive, how you hurt, and judge, and ridicule, and attack one another, and simply say, well, you’re doing the best you can? Good for you.”
Friends in Christ, Jesus loves us too much to let us off the hook that easy, and Jesus is too alive in our world today to stop speaking to us, even if it might be hard for us to hear — with the buzzing nest of “Nice God” religion in our hair.
Just because we might be drifting in these late days in summer, doesn’t mean God is drifting. Just in case you’re feeling drowsy, or distracted, or lost, or cynical these days…about life, about church, about the world, Jesus does not get drowsy, or distracted, or lost, or cynical — thank God!
We are shaken to the core by this powerful text, wrenched back to life by a God who is teeming with energy and life, “Did you think I came to bring peace?” Jesus, for one thing pulls out that “Nice God Up in the Sky” nest, rips it to pieces and sets it ablaze. Jesus arrives onto our scenes TODAY, and rips us apart from our social circles, our family circles, our cultural circles, our political and economic circles — which can give us some sense of identity and security. But if those circles fail to align with his agenda, then “wake up!” he cries.
“My welcome is bigger than you can imagine, my love is wider, my forgiveness wraps around this…universe, my embrace has no end.”
And that’s going to upset a lot of people. Jesus’ mercy is everlasting, his embrace is all-encompassing, his agenda is to set the captives free, recovery of sight, peace to the oppressed (1st 12 chapters of Luke!), but what he doesn’t have time for, is those who stand in the way of that mission. All are forgiven, yes. Grace abounds, yes. But if you refuse the path of discipleship — that difficult road of sacrificial giving and loving your enemy — then move aside. Thank God: Christ’s realm arrives with or without our permission or our participation. But we are nudged again this week to get on board! Thank God.
I’ve learned and experienced in my ministry of 13+ years...that the more welcoming we get as a church, the more mission-minded we become, the more justice-seeking we act, the more we get on board — the more we upset. At one time, it was just welcoming people of different nationalities (Norwegians and Germans mixing) — and divisions formed. Then different skin colors (black and white and brown) — and you know divisions formed. Then in the 70’s the church worked on welcoming more explicitly women and divorcees into leadership — and divisions formed (and we’re not all the way past these historic struggles). Now we’re working on welcoming even more explicitly the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual+ communities, and look how that’s going for us, as a church, as a nation. The more welcoming you get, the more people you upset.
“Did you think I came to bring peace? What did you expect? You know that clouds in the west mean rain…”
What about caring for and welcoming the undocumented immigrants into God’s embrace and into our sanctuaries?
Or people of different socio-economic brackets, ages or abilities? What about people who don’t take care of “our” church? Or the non-human members of this planetary society? The more that Christ is understood as “cosmic” (as he is throughout the New Testament btw), the more divisions will ensue.
And yet, AND YET, the mission goes on, the embrace extends, the compassion and mercy of our God reigns down on us still, and still on all those with whom we share this universe. And despite the division that will inevitably occur when we join along side the One who first joined along side us, we will be alright. Even in the division that our welcome may cause, even among ourselves, our congregations, we will be alright.
We press on, friends in Christ, not because we have an agenda, not because we want to “change the world,” or the church or the city or ourselves. We press on as Christians because of God’s agenda. God has an agenda of freedom and grace and justice and mercy and compassion, and that has captivated us.
That freedom locks us down ironically, it binds us together — and we can’t help but continue to be faithful, to continue in the covenant of our baptisms — that is, living among other faithful ones, hearing and tasting the Word, following Christ out into the world, striving for justice.
WE-WILL-BE-ALRIGHT, surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us, following in the shadow of a God who is rich and complex, gentle and provocative, human and divine, so-much-more-than-just-nice-and-far-away, a God who is both peaceful and divisive. Let us go now, renewed and strengthened, centered and bold. In Jesus name. AMEN.
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